Searchby Ellen Creane
When we moved into our retirement home in Connecticut, we began planting more trees on our half-acre yard near the lake. My husband was a forester, and I was always passionate about trees. It was good to be back in New England after 34 years in California. While I had enjoyed the year-round warmth of the California sun while working for a newspaper that was just a quick walk to Torrance beach, every October I felt a kind of soft melancholy.
Finally, I identified this feeling as a longing for the beauty of autumn and the glorious fall colors of the trees I had grown up among in the Midwest. I remembered how the nightly frost startled the leaves of maples and oaks and weeds into a varietal palate of reds, oranges, yellows. Dark evergreens and black and white birch trunks punctuated the multi-color landscape. I missed the fall fragrance, brisk tartness from the crinkling leaves and the sweetness of frosted evergreen needles.
As a journalism graduate, reporter, curriculum writer, and Newspaper in Education manager at three newspapers, I always had a reverence for trees which ultimately become the printed newspaper. Though I recognize the digital age has become a vital source of news transmission, it’s those logs drifting down the big American rivers to be churned into the newspaper I hold in my hands that links me back to nature. Trees cleanse the air we breathe and nurture the lands of our Earth.
Kid Scoop, the weekly printed page you and millions of children and adults (7.5 million) hold in your hands at home and at school are a connection to trees that were planted by someone in history. On this April 28, 2022, we at Kid Scoop celebrate 50 years of tree planting by the Arbor Day Foundation. This non-profit organization has planted and distributed nearly 50 million trees in 55 countries worldwide. This April date also celebrates the 150th anniversary of Arbor Day.
How did this all begin? According to the Arbor Day Foundation:
“It began with one person, and one idea, in a small town on the Nebraska prairie. J. Sterling Morton was an early settler to the Nebraska Territory (It wasn’t even a state back then!). In 1855, he purchased a large plot of land in Nebraska City, where he settled with his family.
“At the time, Nebraska had few trees. Without them, settlers lacked windbreaks, fuel, building materials, and shade from the hot sun.
“Morton was passionate about planting trees on his own property, and eventually, lobbied the state legislature to create a holiday that would encourage Nebraskans to do the same.
“The first Arbor Day celebration was held in Nebraska on April 10, 1872. Prizes were offered to the individuals and counties that planted the most trees. The day was a resounding success, with an estimated 1 million trees planted throughout the state.”
And Nebraska also produced Vicki Whiting, the creator of Kid Scoop! She later moved with her family to California, but she’s still growing Kid Scoop programs in Nebraska. Here is her Kid Scoop tribute to TREES!
